Food

Cocktail recipes for winter from metro Denver's top bartenders

From left, the Prado 86, the Spiced Tippler, the Bitter End and the Ship Song — hearty beverages to keep winter at bay. (Craig F. Walker, The Denver Post)

Winter is upon us, and on its most bitter days, all the requisite chilly scenes: snow on the ground, sleet in our faces, ice on the windshield and cold right down to the bone.

It's enough to make even the most hard-core Colorado skiers and snowboarders turn to thoughts of a sunny beach.

But not to the cocktails associated with tropical climes.

No, when Jack Frost is nipping at a lot more than your nose, you find yourself dreaming of an adult beverage that can stoke the internal furnace. Your thoughts turn to cask-aged beverages in sundry shades of deep, dark hues.

There was once a classic exchange on the old "Mary Tyler Moore" television show. Lou Grant, Mary Richards' put-upon boss, shows up at her doorway, looking defeated after another day of anchorman Ted Baxter's idiocy.

"Would you like a drink, Mr. Grant?" Mary asks.

"Absolutely," he replies.

"What would you like?"

"I don't care, as long as it's brown."

In the coldest of days, we absolutely get the sentiment.

So we've compiled a list of cocktails to warm body and soul when the mercury heads south of 32 degrees, drawing on the knowledge of some top Mile High bartenders.

Some of these ingredients are esoteric — hard to find and a bit expensive to boot. So feel free to improvise.

And if your efforts don't work, we've listed the addresses of the bars so you can make the pilgrimage and let someone else do the work.

The Ship Song

Randy Layman is the award-winning bar manager at Ace on East 17th Avenue, where he conjures drinks for a pan-Asian menu while ping-pong balls clatter in the back room. Layman enjoys doing original takes on the Old Fashioned. Here he offers the Ship Song. "This variation uses a ruby-style port to add richness and character to the well-rounded rum," he says. "A little bit of spice from the bitters elevates the warmth of the cocktail. The drink is named after one of my favorite Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds songs. I always seem to pull out a Bad Seeds record when the temperature drops." Tools you'll need: Mixing glass, bar spoon, muddler, strainer, jigger

Add one of the orange peels, the sugar cube, bitters and port to a mixing glass, and muddle. Add the rum and ice, stir until chilled and strain over a large ice cube. Garnish with the remaining orange peel.

Adam Hodak oversees the bar programs at two Frank Bonanno restaurants: Green Russell in LoDo and the newly opened Vesper Lounge on East Seventh Avenue. Hodak is one of the leaders on the Mile High craft cocktail scene. The Prado 86 is served at Green Russell, while the Spiced Tippler is a star at Vesper.Tools you'll need: cocktail shaker, saucepan, strainer

To make the syrup, combine 1 cup sugar, 1 cup water, 1 teaspoon whole black peppercorns, ¾ teaspoon ground pepper. Bring to a boil and simmer for 5 minutes. Strain pepper out with cheesecloth or a fine sieve. This makes much more than you'll need, so keep the extra in the fridge.

Shake all ingredients and strain over ice in a tall glass. Add ¼ ounce of allspice dram liqueur as a float, and garnish with an orange peel.

Tools you'll need: Transportation to and from Vesper, since this drink is a bit complicated for the home-drinks mixer.

Ingredients

1½ ounces Wild Turkey 81 rye

¾ ounce Punt E Mes sweet vermouth

½ ounce Barenjager honey liqueur

2 dashes allspice dram

2 dashes orange bitters, preferably oak-aged

Directions

Mix all ingredients and pour under nitrogen gas at 7 p.s.i. over ice with a lemon peel garnish and cinnamon stick.

Vesper Lounge, 233 E. Seventh Ave. 720-328-0314

The Bitter End

Dark Jamaican rum gives the Bitter End its trademark inkiness. It was concocted by bartender Alex Warner for Steuben's, a popular comfort-food emporium in Denver's Uptown neighborhood that puts a premium on top-shelf cocktails. The Bitter End cocktail is dark as a winter night and is a glassful of comfort. Tools you'll need: Spoon, strainer, paring knife, jigger.Ingredients

1 ounce Appleton 12-year-old Jamaican rum

1 ounce Ramazzotti Amaro

1 ounce Carpano Antica sweet vermouth

2 dashes Birds and Bees bitters by Dram Apothecary

Lemon peel for garnish

Directions

Stir all in a glass with ice, and strain into a chilled cocktail glass. Garnish with lemon peel.

Nick Tarsi is the bar manager at Kachina Southwestern Grill in the Westminster Westin hotel. This is the time of year when he begins mulling the possibilities of mulled cider.

"I have played with the mulling spices before and I really like the depth they provide to cocktails," Tarsi says. "The drink starts out with the spice and then the orange and apple flavors kick in and it has a nice round palate presence." Tools you'll need: Medium-sized pot, stove, spoon, strainer.

Ingredients

4 ounces mulled cider (recipe below)

1 ounce Chamucos Reposado tequila

1 ounce Leopold's American Orange Liqueur

Star anise and orange zest for garnish

Directions

To make a mulled cider: Stir together a mulling mix of equal parts allspice, cloves, cinnamon, star anise and nutmeg in a half-gallon of water. Bring to a boil, cool and repeate about four times or until the flavor is quite noticeable. Strain.

To make the cocktail, stir together ingredients in a large brandy snifter, with a star anise and an orange zest.

If the shivering season finds you longing for warmer climes, you can at least dream of a beach in Cozumel with the Oaxacan Winter, a drink created by Bryan Dayton, bar manager and co-owner of Oak at Fourteenth in Boulder. This cocktail features the mellowness of mezcal and agave nectar with the slightly astringent note of the mole bitters. Tools you'll need: Measuring spoons, paring knife.

Ingredients

1½ ounces Sombra mezcal

¼ ounce St. Elizabeth Allspice Dram liqueur

¼ ounce agave nectar

Dash of Bittertruth Xocolatl Mole bitters

Orange peel for garnish

Directions

Combine ingredients and stir over ice in a tumbler. Garnish with a slice of orange peel.

This recipe comes courtesy of the folks at Maker's Mark, the bourbon manufacturer. It calls for yuzu, a type of citrus common in parts of Asia, particularly Japan. It's a bit hard to track down — your best bet is looking for it in an Asian market. Denver has plenty of them. (For the record, Friday is National Hot Toddy Day. Who knew?) Tools you'll need: Mixing glass or cocktail shaker, saucepot, stove, measuring spoons, paring knife.

Ingredients

1 part Maker's Mark bourbon

2 heaping bar spoons of yuzu honey, recipe below

¾ part Laird's Applejack brandy

½ part yuzu juice

5 parts hot water

Directions

Combine all ingredients and serve hot.

Yuzu Honey

Ingredients

½ cup water

¼ cup yuzu rind

10 tablespoons sugar

1½ teaspoons pectin

½ cup honey

2 tablespoons yuzu juice

Directions

Add water to yuzu rind and bring to a simmer. Mix the sugar and pectin together. Stir into the water and yuzu, pouring in a thin, steady stream while stirring. Bring to a boil. Add the honey and stir until the mixture is thick.

Add the yuzu juice. Cook for 1 minute. Remove from heat. Keep refrigerated when not in use.